--- title: Motherhood Penalty Costs High-Earning Moms 10% Income description: The motherhood penalty sees high-earning working mothers losing up to 10% of their income per child, according to a new study from NYU. canonical: https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/ author: Samantha Cooney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-02T17:56:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:01.461Z og:title: High-Earning Moms Lose Up to 10% of Their Income Per Child og:description: But men get a financial bonus og:url: https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8beaf2879950075/6988b074fb4eace6c889015a/motherhood-penalty-hits-high-earners.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5220 og:image:height: 2936 og:image:alt: Crumpled up and torn dollar bill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: High-Earning Moms Lose Up to 10% of Their Income Per Child twitter:description: But men get a financial bonus twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8beaf2879950075/6988b074fb4eace6c889015a/motherhood-penalty-hits-high-earners.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # High-Earning Moms Lose Up to 10% of Their Income Per Child > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 2, 2016 5:56 PM UTC  Chris Parsons—Getty Images  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Dec 2, 2016 5:56 PM UTC High-earning moms can lose up to 10% of their income for every child they have, [_Bloomberg_ reports](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/bad-idea-to-have-that-baby-worse-if-you-re-a-high-earner). A [new study](http://asr.sagepub.com/content/81/6/1161.abstract), which was published in the _American Sociological Review,_ examined employment and family information from more than 5,000 women. The researchers found that low-income and middle-income women lose between 4% and 7% of their income per child, [according to _Quartz_](http://qz.com/850414/wealthy-white-american-women-are-especially-likely-to-suffer-career-setbacks-after-maternity-leave/). But highly-skilled and highly-paid women lose more money per child. “A lot of women are getting pushed into dropping out entirely for a few years because they can’t get a little leave at the beginning or because they can’t get enough flexibility,” New York University professor and the study’s lead researcher Paula England told _Bloomberg_. The publication explains that when high-earning women take a break from the workforce, they can miss out on career and financial opportunities that will impact their earnings down the line. England says that employers can counter this [“motherhood penalty”](http://www.thirdway.org/report/the-fatherhood-bonus-and-the-motherhood-penalty-parenthood-and-the-gender-gap-in-pay) by offering parental leave to employees and creating a culture that doesn’t shame women for taking time off to raise their children. But while women take a monetary hit for having children, men get financial bonuses of around 6% for every child they have, per _Bloomberg_. That’s because men with children are often seen as reliable, but for women, England said, “Employers have a bias that mothers are going to do worse, so they don’t promote them or pay them as much.” \[[_Bloomberg_](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/bad-idea-to-have-that-baby-worse-if-you-re-a-high-earner)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/"},"headline":"High-Earning Moms Lose Up to 10% of Their Income Per Child","datePublished":"2016-12-02T17:56:24.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:01.461Z","description":"But men get a financial bonus","url":"https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8beaf2879950075/6988b074fb4eace6c889015a/motherhood-penalty-hits-high-earners.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Cooney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd8beaf2879950075/6988b074fb4eace6c889015a/motherhood-penalty-hits-high-earners.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Crumpled up and torn dollar bill","caption":"Crumpled up and torn dollar bill","creditText":"Chris Parsons—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4589009/working-mothers-motherhood-penalty/","name":"High-Earning Moms Lose Up to 10% of Their Income Per Child"}}]}] ```